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PinePhone Pro [GNU/Linux smartphone] has been discontinued

(social.treehouse.systems)
172 points fsflover | 10 comments | 28 Aug 25 16:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.608s | source | bottom
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ge96 ◴[28 Aug 25 16:22 UTC] No.45054041[source]▶
Kind of sad, I had both PP and PPP

When they were "new" the tech was old already and then the lack of drivers for the camera for example which I can't talk, I'm not a driver developer. I thought it would make me get into developing drivers but I never did.

Or writing Qt/C++ apps vs. cross platform/web that I was used to.

For some reason I was obsessed with the thought of Dex/your phone being a computer if connected to a big monitor, it was cool using VS Code on the PPP but there would be problems. The external monitor I think was capped to 1920x1080 (if connected to a 1440P display a huge chunk was just static)

I had my fun with it

I was interested in the Pine 64 eInk tablet but that seemed to not be in stock at the time. I had the Remarkable 2 at one point, I want to get it again.

edit: looks like the PineNote is in stock right now

my consumer brain is getting tickled, might get a PineNote, what I liked about the RM2 is I didn't have to charge it for like a month was crazy, unfortunately PineNote doesn't seem to have that, and no tilt support on pen but ehhh. I don't know if RM forces you to have a subscription now, I didn't have it on mine when I got it in like 2022.

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cosmic_cheese ◴[28 Aug 25 16:33 UTC] No.45054158[source]▶
Yeah for these kinds of things to work the hardware has to be at least somewhat competitive and the overall device reasonably usable. It doesn’t need to be a flagship or anything, just relatively recent, and the experience doesn’t have to be perfect, just actually suitable as a daily driver. That’s what gets people interested, inspires devs to contribute and fill app gaps. This kicks off a virtuous cycle where less technical family of those devs see the device and want to try it, which in turn creates more demand for apps pulling more dev interest and so on and so forth.

It’s critical to be good enough to clear that initial hurdle, though. Without that, the device is relegated to the most curious of tinkerers which just isn’t sustainable.

As far as dev experience goes, from my limited dabbling I think GTK+Adwaita might actually be overall nicer for mobile development than Qt, due to furnishment of a full set of widgets without having to pull in anything else, as well as bindings to way more languages. It’s considerably more comparable to UIKit and Android Framework at the very least.

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1. bruce511 ◴[28 Aug 25 18:52 UTC] No.45055651[source]▶
>> That’s what gets people interested, inspires devs to contribute and fill app gaps.

Alas, no, sorry. It's really not the number of apps that matters. Any phone OS could have less than 500 apps and be wildly successful. On the other hand you can have a million devs cranking out apps and the device would still be useless.

Turns out the only apps that matters are the ones everyone actually use. Your banking app. Facebook. Whatsapp. Uber. Airbnb. Etc. All the product of big corporates.

And my bank (to pick just 1) is simply not interested in developing their app for yet another platform. The effort in building it, supporting it etc simply makes no sense.

Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, ESPN, and the next 40 "must haves" simply don't care. And independent devs simply cannot fill these holes. Without these the phone is simply useless as a daily driver for anything other than complete techno fanatics.

Crumbs Microsoft couldn't convince this cohort to get on board. Some random Linux phone certainly won't.

I don't say this with glee. They're nice toys. But Joe public doesn't reject them because of the hardware specs. He rejects them because they're functionally useless in the actual world.

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2. ge96 ◴[28 Aug 25 19:12 UTC] No.45055862[source]▶
That is true, you have to have two phones
3. cosmic_cheese ◴[28 Aug 25 19:19 UTC] No.45055936[source]▶
I think this is wildly more individual-dependent than you may think. Speaking personally, while I do have a number of big commercial apps installed, the number that couldn’t be filled either with a web app or the Android version via a compatibility layer is tiny. The native apps I find most difficult to replace are those by small to midsize devs, which are exactly the ones most likely to be the primary contributors to a new platform early on.

I don’t think this is particularly unusual, either. Plenty of people have absoutely no need for video streaming on their phone outside of maybe YouTube for example, which works well enough on the web.

Microsoft’s not the best example here, because they had momentum with both devs and users but shot themselves in the foot repeatedly on both sides of the fence: warring internal factions reset Windows Mobile development multiple times consecutively and burned through dev goodwill and poor strategy on the consumer side killed things there. Mozilla’s foray into phones failed because they insisted on sticking to entry level devices which were both not interesting to most of the market and not powerful enough to handle a new unoptimized OS.

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4. dotancohen ◴[28 Aug 25 19:28 UTC] No.45056057[source]▶
For what it's worth, I don't have a single one of the apps GP mentions installed on my phone. No Netflix, no Facebook, no WhatsApp.

I am aware that I am an outlier, though. I need either Anki or AnkiDroid. I need a somewhat decent text reader, preferably one that properly highlights and folds Org mode files. I need a voice recorder that timestamps the file name. I don't think I know anybody else who needs any of those three, other than those I've introduced to Anki.

5. codedokode ◴[29 Aug 25 01:39 UTC] No.45059060[source]▶
> Mozilla’s foray into phones failed because they insisted on sticking to entry level devices which were both not interesting to most of the market and not powerful enough to handle a new unoptimized OS.

I think that was not a bad idea. Other open source OSes target expensive devices like Pixel and as a result many people are not buying them because paying a premium for a non-standard phone with buggy software and lacking features doesn't make much sense.

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6. cosmic_cheese ◴[29 Aug 25 03:06 UTC] No.45059679{3}[source]▶
As low as the number who buys a flagship or uses one they already have to run an immature OS may be, it’s still going to be higher than the number who buys a budget device with an immature OS, especially if your goal is to stoke developer enthusiasm.

Think about it.

The everyday Joe who might be interested in a cheap phone is going to be looking for bang for buck, which something untrusted doesn’t get them. For this person something like a budget Android phone from a proven company or a used iPhone is more attractive.

Technical people aren’t going to be interested in a budget phone because they know it’s not going to meet their standards just by looking at its specs, before even considering the OS. They wouldn’t have bought the equivalent Android phone either, and the OS just detracts further.

Lots of people buy flagships, on the other hand. It’s too not unusual for mobile developers in particular to have multiple. An OS that targets them can be put on a phone that these people already have laying around. If the OS is intriguing enough, yes, some will buy a flagship to be able to run it, because it’s low risk. Worst case scenario they have a nice Android device, which is vastly better than buying a low end phone that ends up going unused because the hardware+software combo is intolerable.

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7. codedokode ◴[29 Aug 25 04:15 UTC] No.45060109{4}[source]▶
Linux phones are an experimental devices for enthusiasts where lot of things are not going to work, so it would be less risk to buy a cheaper phone for experimenting. Doesn't make sense to pay iPhone's price for a phone that barely works.
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8. xethos ◴[29 Aug 25 04:20 UTC] No.45060152{4}[source]▶
Then why were there so many more distos, matrix channels, and general discussion for the Pinephone, while the Librem 5 is scarecly mentioned?
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9. cosmic_cheese ◴[29 Aug 25 05:38 UTC] No.45060605{5}[source]▶
The hardware for the Librem 5 is difficult to justify for the price. Googling suggests that its SoC is comparable to a circa-2016 Snapdragon with worse power efficiency. At $800 you’re looking at upper-midrange/lower-flagship pricing for a device that many phones half its price or less would run circles around. Similar problem as the PinePhone Pro.

If it were in the ballpark of a 2-3, maybe 4 year old Pixel, it’d make more sense and probably sell better.

10. cosmic_cheese ◴[29 Aug 25 05:43 UTC] No.45060631{5}[source]▶
Even with that logic I think there’s a floor to how cheap/low end/old you can go and still expect significant interest. 2-4 year old midrange equivalent is probably the limit factoring in the performance overhead needed to make unfinished OSes run well enough to have a semblance of usability and not be miserable.